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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

My classroom pets- Juliana

Hello friends!

I am
excited to share with you something that my kinder kids love, and that could work
with older grades too. This is all you need:

Yes, I’ve
had the “monkey theme” for the past four years (and I plan to have it for a
few more). Magically, my students started to bring me a lot of “monkey stuff”,
including stuffed animals, so I decided to use them during and after class.

I use
them during class when it’s reading time and they don’t have a reading buddy.
They simply go to the library, take a “friend” and read to them. It also works
when I am busy talking to another student. I tell them to say it to the monkey
first (and they really do!). That gives me time to finish the conversation.
There is also another way I have used them. I had a student at the beginning of the
year that would cry constantly because she didn't want to come to school. I
told the student that our monkey was also nervous about coming to class, and
that she was responsible for making sure he was okay, because I wanted him to
know that he was safe in school.

She started taking the monkey everywhere and I
mean everywhere (bathroom, lunch, recess, etc). Our monkey even had a special
place in P.E. I decided it worked but I didn’t want her to carry the monkey the
whole day, every day. I decided I had to take it away, so I started a
journaling activity.

This is how I started it:

1. The students picked five monkey friends from
the classroom.

2. They named all the monkeys. A whole group activity.

3. I created the diary (duck tape on the spiral for durability):

4. Created a few guidelines:

5. I send home every Friday, but only those who have not been on yellow the whole week can take them home. I love how it helps as a motivator for good behavior!

6. Students share on Monday what they did with the monkeys.

Did I mention I also send a small snack(left over from the week)? I tell them that it is for the monkeys and one of my students actually brought the snack on Monday. He said the monkey was not really hungry. How cute!